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NCsoft can outgrow profit loss, exec says
It's been tough times recently for NCsoft. Sales of their big-budget sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa have been less than spectacular and their numbers for the first fiscal quarter of 2008 were disappointing, to say the least. In a recent report by GI.biz however, NCsoft CEO Geoff Heath expressed optimism about his company's prospects for the remainder of the year. Despite having no new titles in the cooker (Aion is still beyond the horizon at this point), Heath is of the belief that his company's portfolio is strong enough to simply grow their way back to profitability, saying, "This is a pretty robust business - if you get it right - you've only got to look at World of Warcraft."Far be it from us to doubt the sincerity of Heath's statements, but that's a heavier dose of optimism than we're accustomed to seeing from an executive. To be sure, NCsoft's portfolio of games is probably the most robust that exists within a single company, and if Lineage II continues growing as strongly in Korea as it as has been, his comments may very well come to fruition. One simply wonders if their aging stable of games is going to continue to see growth in a marketplace that grows more crowded by the day. To be put it nicely, we're less confident than Heath.
NCsoft working on PS3 project, CoX expansion
With a number of popular properties dominating the massively multiplayer arena and a few more on the way, NCsoft already makes a very strong case for being the most important publisher in the MMO genre. If a recent conversation between NCsoft CEO Geoff Heath and MCV are any indication however, this is only the beginning for the South Korea-based company. Heath indicated that they have plans to double their European development capacity over the next eighteen months as part of a push to get an unnamed project on the Playstation 3 by Christmas 2008. As if that wasn't juicy enough, he revealed that CoX, which they only recently acquired, is due for an expansion as well.What's there to say but, "woah!" While CoX fans have hardly been led astray with the thrice-annual Issue release schedule, it's both great and terrible news to hear that a true blue expansion is coming their way. If NCsoft wants to do this correctly, they'd better deliver a serious amount of new content to justify charging for what has been free for the last several years. And as for the goal to get a PS3 game on store shelves by winter 2008, what's with that? Hopefully it's not of the sort that we just have to have, because honestly, who owns a PS3 these days? If we had to take a guess though, we'd probably wager that Guild Wars would be making the jump. It's anybody's guess at this point though.
